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enTue, 26 Sep 2017 21:44:38 GMTTue, 26 Sep 2017 21:44:38 GMTRev96125Enchufate and Microsoft work together to improve the education in Peru through their cloud-based LMS LaurassiaLaurassia" is a world-class Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Learning Management System (LMS) built by "Enchufate" and hosted on Microsoft Cloud (Azure PaaS) that ensures the provision of a high-quality service with high availability for the education customers. It focuses on meeting the needs of education sector in Peru. The major features and functionalities, among others, are: live video streaming, online assessment and tests, research module, group work management, grading management, task management, content management, readings management, forums and work discussions management, user dashboard, calendar and appointments management, etc.

Key Technologies

Microsoft Cloud

Azure App Service

Azure SQL Database

Azure Storage

Application Insights

Azure Key Vault

Visual Studio Team Services

Tools & Languages

Visual Studio

C#

ASP.NET Core

JavaScript / AngularJS

Xamarin

Azure PowerShell

External App/Service

BrainCert

Partner Profile

Enchufate is a Peruvian Independent Software Vendor (ISV) with broad experience in the tech market, focused on the design, development and implementation of tailored technology solutions for the education, government and private sector, in 4 business lines: ICT Education, e-Government & Smart City, Digital Communication, and Software Development.

Enchufate is a multidisciplinary 40-people team of qualified thinkers, with big ideas and passion, that has been transforming education institutions, government entities and private companies through in-house developed products such as: Learning Management System (LMS) Laurassia, Job Insertion and Follow-up, Treasury Management, e-Government Payment Stations, Smart City Solar Charging Stations, Environmental Monitoring, among other solutions.

Peruvian education institutions go through common obstacles and challenges:

The low investment level in technology for public and private education is one of the main weak spots for the majority of the Peruvian, South American and Emerging Markets. Most Peruvian universities do not have an adequate technological infrastructure for Information Systems deployment and these do not meet the quality requirements by law and neither solve the problems institutions face constantly.

The main pain for universities who own Data Centers (DC) is that they have seasons where it is being used to the maximum capacity and, on the other hand, seasons where they have high idle capacity. DC security is another pain, universities are not able to manage and control vulnerability issues. The environmental risk is another important problem for Peru and South America, the DC and systems vulnerability represents potential big losses for universities.

Public universities tend to go on strikes and restrict campus access, therefore the classes are interrupted and are not delivered normally. However, there are students and teachers who are against those strikes and still want to keep on attending classes. They need access for a full-time solution that provides everything they need that wonâ€™t stop their progress to come along.

On-premises infrastructure and cloud-based virtual machines, although viable solutions, come along with several downsides:

- They require high upfront investment to set them up.

- Among the required investment, they must get hardware as well as software licensing (Operating Systems, Databases, etc.).

- They also require a full time on-going IT support resource to keep them running and avoid crushing.

- High complexity to implement and configure DevOps practices such as continuous integration.

Solution, Steps, and Delivery

"e-Learning solutions have been implemented for more than 10 years throughout the world; this only demonstrates that the use of these solutions is highly relevant to offer quality education" ~ Italo Valle, CEO at Enchufate

All the above-mentioned pain points pain points are solvable through a full Platform as a Service (PaaS) implementation. Azure PaaS allows to avoid the expense and complexity of buying and managing software licenses, and the underlying application infrastructure (hardware), bringing down the cost and management overhead of the application. It is cost-saving focused and allows quick horizontal auto-scalability to match customerâ€™s peak loads.

PaaS is designed to support the complete web application throughout its development lifecycle: building, testing, deployment, managing, and updating. Laurassia uses Visual Studio Team Services integrated with Azure App Service. Now, Enchufate can deploy the solution from anywhere in the world with Internet connection, at high speed and response. Using a cloud-based platform eliminates the risk of data loss caused by an eventual natural disaster or any physical damage.

Universities can't find tech professional in the market to maintain the needed hardware to support their DC, whereas PaaS offers high availability (99.9%), 24/7 tech support and response, therefore allowing education institutions to not worry about it nor high operating costs (e.g. full-time employees for routinely tasks).

First Steps

First of all, it was scheduled an envisioning meeting to explore how Microsoft Azure services could help Enchufate to improve their LMS solution (Laurassia). They were very interested in Microsoft cloud offering because its enterprise-grade and elasticity. What is more, Enchufate's application uses Microsoft stack (.NET, SQL Server, etc.) and they are familiarized with Microsoft tools.

The Microsoft team gave them a technical overview of Azure PaaS, including App Service, Azure SQL Database, Application Insights, Visual Studio Team Services, etc. and then they worked on the first draft of the new cloud-based solution architecture. The architecture was re-defined from its original version (monolithic web application running on-premises) to a new cloud-powered web application running on Azure PaaS.

Solution Architecture

Laurassia on Azure PaaS includes continuous integration through Visual Studio Team Services. Additionally, for live classes, it is integrated with a 3rd party SaaS named "BrainCert". The solution architecture also considers Application Insights, an extensible analysis service that supervises the application in an active way, helping detect and diagnose problems with performance and understand what users are doing in the system. In order to save the certifies and cryptographic passwords used in the system, the service used is Key Vault. For documents storage, the services used is Azure Blob Storage. For database, the service used is Azure SQL DataBase. Finally, the web system is published in App Service Web App (it includes two slots: production & staging).

The project team hosted 3 in-person hackfests (technical sessions) to work on the implementation of this new architecture. The original version of Laurassia used to be a single-language monolithic web application implemented in a Windows virtual machine on-premises (IIS + SQL Server) in their clientsâ€™ servers (universities). But we worked together to move this to .NET Core and Azure SQL Database and to convert this single-language monolithic web application into a multi-language SaaS application over Azure PaaS.

The main component of Laurassia is the App Service Web App. It has configured auto scaling from 1 to 5 instances, based on 2 metrics: CPU & RAM. It allows an easy and automated growth of the compute capacity, to match customers peak loads.

The App Service Web App has also daily automated backups enabled, to restore from the linked Azure Storage in case anything goes badly wrong with the system.

Last, but not least, all key components of Laurassia are being monitored using Application Insights (client-side & server-side).

Sample Code

Being more specific, for the upload of documments to Azure Storage, this is the code used in the project. It is an asynchronous method that uses leverage classes from "Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Storage" and "Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Storage.Blob" namespaces. The download process is very similar.

Front-End

All the front-end has been developed using modern web standards such as HTML5, CSS3 & JavaScript. When users log-in for the first time in Laurassia, the system offers a "web tour" to provide an interactive quick guide to help them in their first steps. The following are some screenshots of the new version of Laurassia running on Azure PaaS:

Conclusion

"One of the basic quality conditions that the National Superintendency of Higher Education (SUNEDU) demands is the implementation of a virtual learning system. Laurassia offers a digital platform that improves academic results, guaranteeing a high-quality learning process in university students." ~ Italo Valle, Enchufate CEO

Since Laurassia's conception, Enchufate team thought about a solution that includes not only the usual tools of every other LMS, but a possibility to create and share knowledge. It is intended to be an effort focused to develop education in Peru.

Laurassia, is a cost-efficient cloud-based solution that ensures the provision of a high-quality service with full availability for education, government and corporate clients. Choosing Microsoft Azure PaaS for deploying the solution allows Enchufate to offer a solution with high standards of quality and response. As shown, the benefits of using a PaaS solution are:

Giving all of Enchufate's clients the tranquility that their information is safeguarded by one of the biggest tech companies in the world.

Offering students as well as professors a 24/7 software to teach and learn from anywhere in the world with Internet connection.

Give an alternative for education, private and public government clients to spread knowledge to their inner and outer stakeholders.

Support Laurassia with the state-of-art technology for cloud-computing and education solutions.

Adjust a solution to the specific requirements (tailored solution) as well as cost-efficient in use and storage-wise with scalable services.

From this point onwards, the relationship between Enchufate and Microsoft, along with Laurassia and the next solutions to come, only opens the possibility to generate further better options for the education sector.

Next Steps

Laurassia has the potential to become one of the strongest players in the Peruvian education sector. The next steps are focused on:

Centralize the interaction of Azure's resource through the API (web services), meaning there won't be a direct connection with the Storage nor Databases.

Look for different partnerships with universities worldwide who want to offer their classes.

Give the opportunity for community-generated courses to be published and demanded by users.

Give classes with the expertise of Enchufate's partners and the community-generated courses.

Spread knowledge in association with local governments and universities (local and international) in order to offer free courses to citizens.

Offer educators from diverse backgrounds access to user-friendly tools in order to help them access and prepare up to date courses and content.

Follow the SQL Data Services team blog here.
]]>https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/ZachSkylesOwens/The-Future-of-SQL-Data-Services-with-Nigel-Ellis
I had the pleasure of sitting down with one of SQL Server’s brightest, Nigel Ellis, to discuss the future direction of SQL Data Services. Nigel goes deep on the changes of SDS. If you want to learn what’s really going on behind the scenes this is a great
place to start.
Check out
Nigel's MIX session here.
Follow the SQL Data Services team blog here.
3392https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/ZachSkylesOwens/The-Future-of-SQL-Data-Services-with-Nigel-Ellis
Mon, 27 Apr 2009 19:49:00 GMThttps://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/ZachSkylesOwens/The-Future-of-SQL-Data-Services-with-Nigel-EllisZach Skyles OwensZach Skyles Owens10https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/ZachSkylesOwens/The-Future-of-SQL-Data-Services-with-Nigel-Ellis/RSSAzureSQL Data ServicesSQL ServergeekSpeak recording - SQL Data Services with James Johnson
The geekSpeak webcast series brings you industry experts in a "talk-radio" format hosted by developer evangelists from Microsoft. These experts share their knowledge and experience about a particular developer technology and are ready to answer your questions
in real time during the webcast. Your hosts for this geekSpeak are Lynn Langit and Lindsay Rutter. To ask a question in advance of the live webcast, or for post-show resources, be sure to visit the
geekSpeak blog.

James Johnson is the founder and president of the Inland Empire .NET User's Group. He has a great affinity for all things Web, data, user experience, and building community. James' passion is getting people access to experts, experiences, and technologies they
never thought they would have access to or could achieve. James is a frequent blogger at
www.duringlunch.com, and he is constantly working on the next big thing.]]>https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/geekSpeak/geekSpeak-recording-SQL-Data-Services-with-James-JohnsonMicrosoft SQL Data Services (SDS) offers highly scalable and Internet-facing distributed database services in the cloud for storing and processing relational queries. In this geekSpeak webcast, James Johnson provides an overview of working with SQL Data
Services—what it is, how it works, why you would want to use it, and why it is so cool. James highlights how to get started, shows to interact with the service, and steps through building an application.
The geekSpeak webcast series brings you industry experts in a &quot;talk-radio&quot; format hosted by developer evangelists from Microsoft. These experts share their knowledge and experience about a particular developer technology and are ready to answer your questions
in real time during the webcast. Your hosts for this geekSpeak are Lynn Langit and Lindsay Rutter. To ask a question in advance of the live webcast, or for post-show resources, be sure to visit the
geekSpeak blog.
Guest Presenter: James Johnson, President, Inland Empire .NET User’s Group
James Johnson is the founder and president of the Inland Empire .NET User's Group. He has a great affinity for all things Web, data, user experience, and building community. James' passion is getting people access to experts, experiences, and technologies they
never thought they would have access to or could achieve. James is a frequent blogger at
www.duringlunch.com, and he is constantly working on the next big thing.
3371https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/geekSpeak/geekSpeak-recording-SQL-Data-Services-with-James-Johnson
Fri, 20 Feb 2009 10:46:00 GMThttps://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/geekSpeak/geekSpeak-recording-SQL-Data-Services-with-James-JohnsonBrian JohnsonBrian Johnson1https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/geekSpeak/geekSpeak-recording-SQL-Data-Services-with-James-Johnson/RSSgeekSpeakSDSSQLSQL Data ServicesSQL ServerLearning to build on Azure: One ISV's ExperienceWhile at PDC back in October, Ryan Dunn and I had a chance to sit down with Shan McArthur from gold ISV partner
ADXSTUDIO to discuss what he'd learned from his experiences with the
Azure Services Platform.

Shan is a serial early adopter and Ryan and I (and a few other Technical Evangelists) have been working with him and his team for some time to help them along the way.

He ported ADXSTUDIO CMS and their
CRM Developer Toolkit so that they are now able to run in either on-premises, partner-hosted or Windows Azure. He also took advantage of Microsoft SQL Data Services (which is Ryan's favorite technology ) to store the content for the CMS.

Shan had a lot so say about what he learned when build his cloud-capable and scalable app. His app originally had a dependency on numerous Microsoft technologies including IIS, ASP.NET, SQL Server, Active Directory.

Windows Azure

He’s now betting of both worlds. He knows many of his customers will continue to use traditional deployment methods but for many more
Windows Azure will be a great fit.

Some of his comments:

Hosting in Azure is different. You can’t always do the things you expect from ASP.NET since you're now in a sandbox

The first thing to learn is code access security code since Windows Azure doesn't run apps in full trust

A great way to learn code access security is to move into medium trust immediately (even while on IIS) to see the exceptions right away

Get devs to Vista and IIS7 and use the integrated pipeline

He talks about how to build applications that will run in either IIS or Windows Azure.

Shan’s team were able to get all of this cool stuff ported and working in just a few weeks.

Shan shows us a project built on the ADXSTUDIO CMS running on Windows Azure and in the Windows Azure dev fabric.

SQL Data Services

Shan’s team went with
SQL Data Services (SDS) for data storage. He notes that Windows Azure also has some storage capabilities. Shan discusses why he made the choice he did to use SDS:

much richer query capability

easier to use for composition of multiple web sites

soon will have the additional security access control

will take on more and more relational capabilities

Since SDS is not full-fledged SQL Server there is a certain amount of re-architecting that Shan needed to do to ensure that his app was portable. He made some design decisions very early on in development that made this easier:

used a provider model to separate the data from the logic in the application

moved away from deep dependency on SQL Server (e.g. stored procs)

used guids/ unique ids (as opposed to using auto-numbered ints) for unique keys

Shan goes quite deep into the code showing how he takes full advantage of the provider model.

He also spends some time talking about how he tackles identity. Again because he uses the membership provider model he can switch identity based on the need of the application (Active Directory, Live Id, Forms Auth, etc).

Dynamics CRM

Shan’s team does a lot of work with
Dynamics CRM as well. Shan’s team put together a very cool conference self-service registration demo application that uses Azure on the front end with the site content stored in SDS and the dynamic content coming directly via web services from Dynamics
CRM. So, in the same way that Dynamics CRM can be used to build line-of-business apps that run on-premises, partner-hosted or in Microsoft data-centers with CRM Online, they can build customer facing self-service web sites that run in any of the 3 hosting
models (on-prem, partner-hosted, Windows Azure). For Shan’s code it’s just a change in a web.config file.

I even managed to get Ryan on film paying off Shan for all the kind words he has for the evangelists that have helped him out. Gosh, I hope Legal doesn't see this. Seriously though, Shan has certainly done a great job of taking advantage of all the
resources we provide to ISVs building on our platform. Thanks for
the kind words and great product, Shan.

Links:

]]>https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/benriga/Learning-to-build-on-Azure-One-ISVs-Experience
While at PDC back in October, Ryan Dunn and I had a chance to sit down with Shan McArthur from gold ISV partner
ADXSTUDIO to discuss what he'd learned from his experiences with the
Azure Services Platform.
Shan is a serial early adopter and Ryan and I (and a few other Technical Evangelists) have been working with him and his team for some time to help them along the way.
In this video Shan discusses some of the things he's done that helped him get there faster. Amazingly the team was able to get the
ADXStudio Content Management System (CMS) ported to
Windows Azure in a lightning fast 3 weeks.
He ported ADXSTUDIO CMS and their
CRM Developer Toolkit so that they are now able to run in either on-premises, partner-hosted or Windows Azure. He also took advantage of Microsoft SQL Data Services (which is Ryan's favorite technology ) to store the content for the CMS.
Shan had a lot so say about what he learned when build his cloud-capable and scalable app. His app originally had a dependency on numerous Microsoft technologies including IIS, ASP.NET, SQL Server, Active Directory.
Windows Azure
He’s now betting of both worlds. He knows many of his customers will continue to use traditional deployment methods but for many more
Windows Azure will be a great fit.
Some of his comments:
Hosting in Azure is different. You can’t always do the things you expect from ASP.NET since you're now in a sandbox
The first thing to learn is code access security code since Windows Azure doesn't run apps in full trust
A great way to learn code access security is to move into medium trust immediately (even while on IIS) to see the exceptions right away
Get devs to Vista and IIS7 and use the integrated pipeline He talks about how to build applications that will run in either IIS or Windows Azure.
Shan’s team were able to get all of this cool stuff ported and working in just a few weeks.
Shan shows us a project built on the ADXSTUDIO CMS running on Wind1898https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/benriga/Learning-to-build-on-Azure-One-ISVs-Experience
Tue, 16 Dec 2008 03:22:00 GMThttps://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/benriga/Learning-to-build-on-Azure-One-ISVs-ExperienceBen RigaBen Riga2https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/benriga/Learning-to-build-on-Azure-One-ISVs-Experience/RSSAzureDynamics CRMSQL Data ServicesWindows AzureWhat's new in SQL Data Services for DevelopersRyan visits Jason Hunter and Jeff Currier, a couple of the lead developers on the SQL Data Services team (formerly called SQL Server Data Services) to find out what the new PDC CTP
build of the SDS service brings for developers.

Kick back and watch the devs dig deep into SDS and show a few demos of the new relational features and blob support found in SQL Data Services today.
]]>https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/dunnry/Whats-new-in-SQL-Data-Services-for-DevelopersIn this screencast, Ryan visits Jason Hunter and Jeff Currier, a couple of the lead developers on the SQL Data Services team (formerly called SQL Server Data Services) to find out what the new PDC CTP
build of the SDS service brings for developers.
Kick back and watch the devs dig deep into SDS and show a few demos of the new relational features and blob support found in SQL Data Services today.
3807https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/dunnry/Whats-new-in-SQL-Data-Services-for-Developers
Mon, 27 Oct 2008 20:53:00 GMThttps://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/dunnry/Whats-new-in-SQL-Data-Services-for-DevelopersRyan DunnRyan Dunn0https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/dunnry/Whats-new-in-SQL-Data-Services-for-Developers/RSSCloud ServicesSDSSQL Data ServicesSSDS